URISA at 40 - Quality, not Quantity

By
Joe Francica

The 40th URISA opened with a modest
and perhaps disappointing turnout but a blockbuster program.I estimated
that approximately 350-400 attended the keynote session where attendees
heard Jack Eichenbaum, New York City
Assessor, recount the 9/11 aftermath and the tribulations in gathering
myriad departments with disparate agendas, not to mention spatial databases,
into a cohesive team.

The URISA board put together an educationally
oriented agenda that was targeted at delivering coherent information for
participants.The session on the Urban Data Model (see below) were extremely
interesting from a number of points of view, not the least of which was
that the model could certainly be labeled a proprietary offering from ESRI,
yet comprehensive enough so that it deserves serious consideration.Other
sessions targeted at enterprise GIS deployment, public-private sponsorships
of data sharing and dissemination such as the GeoData Alliance and the
Open Data Consortium, federal-state-local collaboration, and more "nuts
and bolts" sessions discussing XML, disease modeling, and spatial dynamics.

Yet, the vendors were once again
muted in their enthusiasm for a show that draws less than 1000 attendees.
With the show clearly past its peak attendance years, compounded by budget
cuts and travel safety concerns, it has become a super-regional gathering
of members at best.In speaking with Pierce Eichelberger, outgoing URISA
president, and GIS manager for Chester County, Pennsylvania, he was pleased
at the attendance as he said he instructed his staff to be extremely conservative
in their pre-show attendance expectations.As Eichelberger explained, URISA
is reaching out more toward its members with application specific shows
that have "taken on a life of their own" and serve an ever-increasing niche
under the URISA umbrella.Conferences such as Computer-aided Mass Appraisal
(CAMA) and Street Wise and Address Savvy have grown and will continue to
be supported.

But vendors were clearly disappointed
at the traffic.A show that once hosted over 175 vendors now struggles
to attract one-third that number.But it would be wrong to simply focus
on the numbers.URISA developed an excellent program.As an organization,
there is an enormous need to draw members together to discuss the problems
associated with not only implementing technology or common data models,
but reaching out to smaller, rural governments and municipal COGS or consortiums
to leverage technical experience and shrinking budgets.URISA, although
not nearly as entrepreneurial as it once was, according to one ex-board
member, needs to continue to innovate with not only good programs but with
services that support their membership.